Q1. What are you writing at the minute?
I'm currently on the edit of my Irish War of Independence thriller featuring Michael Collins.
Q2. Can you give us an idea of your typical up-to-the-armpits-in-ideas-and-time writing day?
My writing day forms the book-ends of my real day. I usually start with a cup of strong tea at about 5.30am or 6am and work through to about 8am. Then I'll do a few hours in the evening once I've begged our four insomniac children to go to bed. I find tea-drinking very helpful, so I consume gallons of it. Some days rivers, in fact.
Q3. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Carousing, bull-fighting, big-game hunting, drinking absinthe - sadly I'm not Ernest Hemmingway. I work as a part-time journalist and look after the children for the rest of the week. A great excuse to spend afternoons exploring rivers and forests.
Q4. Any advice for a greenhorn trying to break into the crime fiction scene?
Read broadly and deeply. Read philosophy, history, classic literature, foreign literature, newspapers, magazines, anything you can get your hands on. Even the pieces of paper you find in the street. Correct that; ESPECIALLY the pieces of paper you find in the street.
Q5. Which crime writers have impressed you this year?
I've been reading a Russian fellow called Dostoyevsky. Wonderful sense of noir. Apart from that Gayle Curtis' Shell-house is a hidden gem. Her haunting sea-side setting has a mesmerising effect. And my interviewer's Fireproof was an entertaining read with its teflon-coated black humour. Worth the cover price for the description of Lucifer, alone. Elsewhere, Declan Burke and Ken Bruen continue to prove they are masters at the height of their powers.
Q6. What are you reading right now?
The Psalms, in German. Seriously. A wonderful antidote to the corrupting influence of writing about the criminal mind.
Q7. Plans for the future?
A good night's sleep.
Q8. With regards to your writing career to date, would you do anything differently?
Non, je ne regrette rien.
Q9. Do you fancy sharing your worst writing experience?
As a rookie journalist I once managed to offend the newspaper's Polish readers by misspelling a single word in a front page headline. Something to do with the death of the Pope and the unfortunate similarity between the Russian and Polish words for goodbye.
Q10. Anything you want to say that I haven’t asked you about?
No thanks.
Thank you, Anthony Quinn!
